Contemporains et successeurs de Ronsard

Ma bibliothèque poétique. Quatrième partie, tome ii. By Jean-Paul Barbier. Geneva, Droz, 2001. 600 pp. Hb 100 SwF. Ma bibliothèque poétique. Quatrième partie, tome iii. By Jean-Paul Barbier. Geneva, Droz,2002. 555 pp. Hb 100 SwF. Jean-Paul Barbier continues to record in the minutest detail his remarkable collection of French Renaissance poets in these two catalogues covering Ronsard's contemporaries and successors. As with previous volumes in this series (see FS, xlvi (1992), 317, and FS, lv (2001), 378), the individual works of the poets in question are provided not only with a full bibliographical description, but also an exhaustive list of their contents, reproductions of their title pages and other pages of interest, colour reproductions of many of the magnificent bindings in the collection, and a wealth of biographical and bibliographical information on the authors. These range enormously in their degree of celebrity, with some — Desportes, Garnier, and Jamyn in volume iv. 2, and Michel de L'Hospital and Malherbe in volume iv. 3 — being singled out for a special Notice biographique at the start of their entries, while the others are dealt with rather more summarily at the end of their sections. Philippe Desportes's entry is also augmented, at the end of volume iv. 2, by a ‘Tableau chronologique des œuvres poétiques de Philippe Desportes’, established by the author's former librarian, Thierry Dubois. This will be of considerable assistance to anyone working on Ronsard's rival in later life. As with the previous catalogues, it is the charm and the enthusiasm of the author which transforms these volumes into something more than just an accurate but dry bibliographical description of the works which they cover. The Avant-propos of each volume lets us into the personal life of the author: his love of poetry, his first steps as a collector, his relationship with his father, and, above all, his poetic tastes and preferences. Again, as in previous volumes, the reader will come across unexpected treasures, such as the family trees of the Bourbon and the Orléans-Longueville families (iv. 3, pp. 235 and 241, in the section devoted to Jean and Jacques de La Taille). In addition, we have to admire the extremely useful bibliographical information provided on the poets in the two catalogues, which make them a highly valuable research tool, and which belie the author's modesty when he claims to avoid aping the work of academics: ‘je ne possède, par exemple, qu'une très faible connaissance des poètes grecs et latins, provençaux et italiens’ (iv. 2, p. 3). His poetic judgements are invariably well informed, astute, and above all committed. Once again, then, these volumes, of which the first is dedicated to the memory of another bibliophile, Michel Simonin, will provide essential information on a host of major and minor French Renaissance poets, while allowing us to share Barbier's passionate enthusiasms

Art · Art history · Humanities · Notice · The Renaissance · Historical and Literary Studies · Medieval European Literature and History · Philosophy · Renaissance Literature and Culture